[MIKarlsen]

"If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover at that point."

I've raised this point to a fair few of my friends and colleagues recently. I think it is becoming increasingly hard to contribute to society, because everything is so gosh-darn technical.

Companies _scream_ for developers - but not junior developers, or people who they can teach to program - but developers with 5+ years worth of experience.

I think this will only get WAY worse in the future. Unfortunately, I also think it will mean that people who fail to get a job after taking their degree will be worse off than people with little or no education, who has always had a job (no matter the type of job).

So if you're done with college/university (which is when you're around 25-30 y/o in Europe), and you can't get a job, and you can't put your education to use. You're pretty much shit out of luck in most cases. Of course you can always dig yourself out, but doing so would most likely mean working a min-wage job for 8-10 hours a day, and then spending all your free-time and weekends learning a useful skill, which doesn't leave much time for friends or family (or making a family).

[roel_v]

"So if you're done with college/university (which is when you're around 25-30 y/o in Europe),"

Uh, what? You're done with university (masters) at 22-23. Late 20's when you include PhD.

[MIKarlsen]

Where I'm from (Denmark), most people start university when they're 18-22, and then you have to do a bachelors degree (3 years) and a master degree (2 years). Often times, people spend more time on their degrees because they take extra internships. Based on the 50 people I had a some-what close relation to while I did my degree, most of them where 26-27 when they got their masters degree.

You can see a figure from ministry of education here (first figure - it shows the age of the starting student): https://www.dst.dk/pukora/epub/Nyt/2005/NR242.pdf

The title of the chart is translated into "Average age of new students", where the top part addresses bachelors-students from each of the 5 mayor areas (technical, societal etc), while the bottom part of the graph shows the vocational education system here.

After they start, they will use 5 years minimum to get their degrees. Bachelors are worthless in Denmark.

EDIT: I know the first article is from 2004. Here's a 2016 article that states that new students at the University of Copenhagen (largest in Denmark) had an avg. age of 22,7 in 2016, which was a year younger than the avg. age in 2015: https://uniavisen.dk/alderspraesidenter-eller-groenskollinge...

[roel_v]

Why would a sizeable portion of people start at 22? 18-19 plus 4 or 5 (there are plenty of 1-year masters - maybe not in Denmark, but elsewhere in Europe) is 24 at worst.

It's true that 10 or 20 years ago it was normal to spend 6 years on a 4 year study. Times have changed. And if they haven't yet in Denmark, they will in time.

[lordnacho]

> Why would a sizeable portion of people start at 22? 18-19 plus 4 or 5 (there are plenty of 1-year masters - maybe not in Denmark, but elsewhere in Europe) is 24 at worst.

Later start in school, potential extra year 10 before high school, something called "højskole" which is potentially another year or so after high school (look up a guy called NFS Grundvig to explain this), conscription/volunteer for the military for some people.

Most long degrees are 5 years from high school to masters, 3 + 2 officially, but you generally don't want just the 3.

Also it's a reasonably common thing for people to get delayed. Failed exams, stress, even babies. Government is looking a lot at how to get people through quickly.

[karles]

I'm just stating the facts. But let me explain how the educational trajectory looks like. Sorry I don't know the correct terms for all the different levels of education. But here goes:

Age 2-6: Daycare/kindergarden

6-16/17: Grade School (folkeskolen)

16/17-19/20: High School (gymnasiet)

19/20-20/23: One or two years off where people work/travel/move out from their parents etc. (as you can see, we're close to the 22 year average here)

20/23-25/28: 5 years of university - add one year for the standard extra interships and you have 6 years of university

Fastest possible way: Start school at 5, skip 10th grade, just straight to High School aged 15, finish high school aged 18, straight to university and study for 5 years (fastest possible degree in the regular system), and you're 23 by the time you get out of the system.

[geezerjay]

You've just asserted that college students in Denmark should spend less time finishing a degree, but provided no reason or substance to back your assertion.

[dsajames]

A big part is you don't know who can learn to code and enjoy it. Not everyone is cut out for it.

[k__]

On the other hand, how many people can you train to become programmers?

[MIKarlsen]

Are you asking if it would be feasible for companies to take in well-educated people, and teaching them the programming/dev-craft?

I don't know. But right now, companies are trying to solve the problem in other ways, which is ultimately not addressing their core need.

I just feel like some sort of educational system (bootcamp'ish) would be able to make a good business case for most companies.

[ams6110]

When I finished my undergrad education, my first job was with a big consulting firm. Early 1990s. They did have a 6 or 8 week "boot camp" and they taught new hires how to program. Many of them had had no significant prior background in programming.

[k__]

I'm asking how much of the population can learn to program.

I once read that you need an IQ above 100 to learn it and be effective with it, I just don't remember how much above 100 it was. 110 or 115 or something...

On the other hand, programming gets easier by the day.

I know a few people in marketing who build impressive stuff just with GUI based programming tools.

[Wowfunhappy]

Most people, I'd imagine. Given enough time.

But I don't know how many you could train within a cost-effective timeframe.

[MIKarlsen]

And learning the basics just doesn't seem to cut it anymore. It seems like most enterprise technology builds on older versions of older versions making it more complex. For instance, AI and ML seems like two subject areas that would be impossible for anyone to work professionally with, if they don't have years and years of experience with programming/math/statistics.